Videodreams: Between The Cinematic And The Theatrical
15 May – 19 September 2004
Kunsthaus Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum
Lendkai 1, A-8020 Graz
T +43-316/8017-9213
presse@kunsthausgraz.at
www.kunsthausgraz.at
Space02
The interaction of Sol LeWitt’s installation Wall and Vera Lutter’s large-size photographs and the performative architecture of the Kunsthaus Graz finds its continuation in Videodreams: Between the Cinematic and the Theatrical.
Spread conceptually and stylistically from Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet and Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty through the Brechtian epic theater and Verfremdungs-effect to Lars von Trier’s Dogville and Robert Lepage’s Geometry of Miracles, this exhibition traces the archaeology of a back stage and a location set in a thorough investigation of poetics and politics of artificiality and illusion. Merging dreaming (a field of projection) and staging (a space of self-training), this exhibition aims at analysing the subjectivity under construction, in a process, during the rehearsal, while mastering before the final performance occurs.
It is a study of a mechanism of illusion and imagined realities with a focus on the notions of the theatrical, the performative and the mise-en-scene. How the convention is being negotiated? How the artificiality is played out in a drama of genuine gestures and intentions? How the belief is born and spelled out on the crossway of a direct and mediated behaviour, between the real and virtual environments? Appropriating Mieke Bal’s treatment of theatricality as a form, medium, or practice, in which the object of cultural analysis performs a meeting between (aesthetic) art(ifice) and (social) reality, the exhibition reconsiders the mise-en-scene as a collective reception, a mediation between a play and the multiple public. It aims at pointing out the connections between the mise-en-scene and subjectivity as it is revealed in the reality of dreams: after Bal, it asks what dreams can tell us about staging; what staging can tell us about dreams; what dreaming occurs on, or through the stage in the examples of mise-en-scene. Imaginary and oneiric are intertwined with unreal and conventionary, as in the post-studio site-specific Dogville where Freudian uncanny field of critical imagination combines dream space and Brechtian strategies of sabotaging the reality effect.
Theatre and theatricality as well as cinema and cinematicity are regarded as both the subject matter and a particular stylistic. As such the exhibition aims at investigating the condition of a (moving) image in its fluent oscillation between the theatrical stillness, suspended movement of the dia projection and the cinematic flux; through the insight into the production of a spectacle it examins the intensity of attentiveness and the status of contemporary spectatorship. Referring to Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures and Alain Resnais’ L’anee derniere a Marienbad, Videodreams: Between the Cinematic and Theatrical focuses on the recent video environments and video multi-screen installations. As such, the exhibition itself becomes in a way a strongly site-specific event in the new building of the Kunsthaus Graz designed by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier. Kunsthaus’ unusual biomorphic architecture foregrounds the aspects of the performative space with an advanced theatricality. Searching for new contexts for the viewing conditions of the video-based works and trying to reach new audiences, the exhibition also aims at expanding its performative space through staging video works behind the Kunsthaus’ own territory – in such environments like Schauspielhaus, Schubert Cinema and Grazer Mausoleum.
Participating Artists:
Fabienne Audeoud / John Russell, Barbara Bloom, Janet Cardiff / George Bures Miller, Stan Douglas, Rodney Graham, Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler, Katarzyna Kozyra, Joan Jonas, Mark Lewis, Sharon Lockhart, Aernout Mik, Tony Oursler, Judy Radul, Catherine Sullivan, Artur Zmijewski
Curated by Adam Budak, Peter Pakesch
May 15-June 6, 2004/10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 1:30-4 :00 p.m.
Artur Zmijewski: Singing Lesson
Grazer Mausoleum, Entrance Burggasse
May 15-July 15, 2004/Daily
Barbara Bloom: The Diamond Lane
Videodreams/Video Presentation in the section of film trailers
Schubert Cinema, Mehlplatz 2, 8010 Graz
Sunday, June 6, 2004/7:00 p.m.
Sharon Lockhart: Teatro Amazonas, Goshogaoka
Videodreams/Video Presentation
Schauspielhaus Graz/Hofgasse 11, 8010 Graz
Additional Film and Videoprogram
Jorgen Leth & Lars von Trier
The Five Obstructions, 2003, 87 min.
Sami Saif
Dogville Confessions, 2003, 52 min.
David Clermont Beique
Digging For Miracles, 2000, 57 min.
Yvonne Rainer
Lives of Performers, 1972, 90 min.
Joan Jonas
Volcano Saga, 1989, 28 min.
Double Lunar Dogs, 1984, 24 min.
Mike Kelly and Paul McCarthy
Fresh Acconci, 1995, 45 min.
Out O’Actions, 1998, 4 min. 25 sec.
Robert Wilson
Deafman Glance, 1981, 27 min.
